Forests, Freaks & Flu
by Prince of Leaves
Summary: Dean's not feeling too well but of course he insists he's great. Then it's too late to turn back when their deep in an awful forest and a terrible creature is intent on harming them. Hurt Dean. Caring Sam.
1. Chapter 1

Dean felt it creep up into his skin and leave a trail of bristling shivers. He wished he had destroyed it before it dealt its mean, mean hand, but it was a force that he couldn't twist round the neck and defy with any manner of weaponry resistance. It was always too late. The weather was too bad. The world would end.

-SPN-

He had been in the attic of an ancient freak who once had a hobby dealing in the unsavoury, when he first felt the soft swell at his throat and the prickle of panic that had nothing to do with the supernatural. Dean was a tough guy –so much tougher than Sam of course- but he had things that Sam didn't have, like allergic reactions. He brushed his sleeves hurriedly against spiders and cursed all kinds of bugs. There was small, but they were dangerous, and that made it ridiculous.

He poked around in corners to find some remnant of remains to burn but so far everything was coated in thick dark gritty warnings. He covered his nose with his hand and thought vaguely about a long time ago when a nurse had told him to carry one of those white masks, because they looked weak but they did help. Dean didn't want to look weak, that was a bit of a problem too. He didn't think Sam would mind, but Sam should not have a big brother who was more apprehensive of spring than ghosts.

Sometimes, he really was useless. It had been surreal watching Sam grow and grow, leave him behind in all kinds of ways. He should've been the one Sam looked up to, but then he was looking up at Sam and wondering how he could pull away the gluey something that stuck to his chest.

He found a wig which was probably a hundred years old. It was filled with maggots and other creatures, but it would burn all semblances of the ghost and leave him free to contemplate his morbid thoughts. He torched it and stamped the fire out. Another hunter would burn the abandoned rotten house down, but he was scared of house fires. Scared, scared, with the cough that crept up his chest when he was four and never quite left.

He sneezed violently. That was good. Sneezes are the best.

'Sam,' he yelled, 'all done.'

Then he heard a cough. It was like a curt nod from someone you wanted to impress. And it came from his chest. It twanged like a snapped string. He thumped his ribs, spat on the disgraceful floor of the attic and left. Sam, who was standing outside, waiting, looked at him.

'That was an old house,' he commented 'it was very dusty.'

'So?' Dean shrugged his shoulders.

'You must have inhaled at least a trunk's worth of the stuff.'

'Why does that matter?' he replied, irritated.

'I don't want you to get sick, Dean' continued Sam, because that's just how the real Sam was, very questioning about anything that concerned him and it was weird how Dean concerned him as easily he once did, like he was wearing an old jacket that fit him just right 'you should've let me go instead.'

'I'm fine,' Dean shrugged again, so calm, so confident, so many coughs that threatened his world. It was good Sam was here, good like the way the sun sneaks in through the gray coverlets of winter and you don't want it to leave, but he didn't like being sick when Sam was around. So he wouldn't be sick, no matter what sniffs demanded or the aches at his temples.

It was air. It was life. It should be effortless. It wasn't.

Dean felt the cough in his chest again and swallowed it somehow.

-SPN-

The next hunt was something slightly more serious. It involved a monster that could rip into abdomens and require faulty insurance after. It lurked in a damp forest inside a crusty cave and only appeared outside of its lair before dawn. That meant it would be windy, nippy, creepy and the right sort of case for serious hunters. Sam had found it and pronounced the creature's Latin name the same lisped way he had when he had learned it as a kid. It was cute and Dean smiled. Sam smiled back and didn't know why.

'This time you follow me' Sam said, 'because last time I followed you and that's only fair.'

'Are you crazy?' Dean snorted 'I always go first. That's the rule. I don't care if it's unfair.'

'That's your rule' Sam retorted, 'and I found this case and I want to face the danger first. I don't always want to be behind you. I also want to kill stuff.'

Dean thought it was unsettling to hear someone argue that they want to kill stuff too. It wasn't normally something Sam would say, but Sam was strange sometimes.

'Alright then, compromise' he said resignedly 'I still go first, but I don't kill the thing. I only hurt it slightly and then you slash its icky gore right out all over your big feet. Okay?'

'Not okay,' Sam said stubbornly and it occurred to Dean that Sam wasn't telling him everything. Sam didn't lead hunts unless Dean was bleeding and couldn't keep up. He hadn't expressed much of a discord to it before.

'Spill it,' he looked at his brother.

Sam hesitated. Dean coughed. It was a scratch, a jerk, a cleared throat, watery smile, Sam looking at him warily. Then he coughed from somewhere he didn't know existed, it was grating and rough and sandpaper. There was salt in his eyes and someone steadied the wheel.

'M&M' he told Sam, when he could almost breathe and the kid was done blinking at him 'I don't chew properly.'

'Oh, alright, of course, that makes so much sense' said Sam, 'I remember that last pack of M&Ms. There were only yellows left because you don't eat them.'

Then Dean knew why. Sam knew he was getting sick and Sam didn't trust him enough to lead this hunt. Oh no, that wouldn't happen. He was slick and fine, and he'd not only get them to the thingy, but he'd kill it too. A memorable hunt, that's what it would be, something to write about in his own journal one day.

His chest creaked and he told it no.

-SPN-

'This is the hardest trail to follow' Sam showed him the map. Creatures liked to live where it was most difficult to get to, sometimes venturing out there for a nibble, 'the caves are at the end.'

Dean did not want a hard track. He wanted the impala to have wings.

'Yeah, alright' he slung his backpack over his shoulders 'let's get to it.'

'You're not even all hyper and annoying,' Sam followed him 'I thought you wanted something exciting and dangerous.'

'I love this,' Dean snapped, but it sounded more like a sniff. He had been looking forward to it, but that was before it felt like there something bleeding inside his throat. He couldn't tell Sam though, because Sam was full of adrenaline and vengeance and hunting lust that made his eyes both wild and cold. Dean normally reveled in that, but now his eyes were itching and he wanted to rub them like he was six.

'We'll set a medium fast pace' his brother said companionably, 'be there about 23:48 and we'll have enough time to set out all the traps.'

'Yes,' said Dean, automatically stepping in front and knocking rocks and roots away.

'Have you got the silver bullets?'

Dean stopped. He wasn't sure, he couldn't remember, and the box had been there…Sam looked at him suspiciously; he could be so suspicious it was suffocating. They were already quite awhile away from the car. There was nothing to it. Either he check for the bullets and run back to get them, or get eaten.

'Dean?' Sam asked, 'you do have them right?'

He swung his backpack in front –ouch, chest- and rooted inside. There was definitely no silver bullet case. There was definitely death for Dean. He'd do his last heroic act, let Sam live and let the creature eat him.

'Dean?' Sam was nagging now. Dean sniffed.

'Okay, I know this legend' Sam took a deep breath 'where if you shoot it in the eye, it will die.'

'Even with a normal bullet?' Dean blessed Sam's brain.

'Let's hope,' Sam almost snarled, which was a good reaction to the situation.

They walked, less companionably now, the hours darkened, Dean tried to hide his coughs. He felt an ache nipping at his senses, when his senses should be aware enough to ward against malignant bugs, monsters and not let things eat Sam.

His skin itched. His collar strangled. His eyelashes were so heavy, they would fall off.

They were talking again.

'Do you know that there's some sea salt in everything?' Sam said, because he had all this random knowledge from watching quiz shows or whatever, 'it's because we were all sunken under water once.'

'Uh huh,' replied Dean. Sam looked at him for a moment. When they went hunting, Sam would speak about trivia or homework or whatever he wanted, and Dean would chirp in with the snarky comments and jokes.

'Isn't it cool' Sam spoke like he was rehearsing something instead of wanting to say it, like he was slightly worried, 'that we're sort of made of stardust? That means we sort of have some special planet stuff inside us.'

Dean didn't understand what Sam was saying, it didn't make a lot of sense.

'Also,' his brother was now next to him and he didn't know how that happened 'if you study our genetics…Dean!'

He tripped.

It was cold with his face on the ground and his eyes shut tightly like he would sink into the salty sand. Sam tapped him on the shoulder, asking him if he was alright 'give me your hand'. He didn't want to get up that quickly. He was uncomfortable, must've scraped his forehead, elbows and knees, but for some strange reason, it was good to just lie here.

He didn't want to give his hand to Sam, because that meant he needed help and he couldn't remember something this embarrassing happening to his father. He'd jump up and shrug, swear the log because it had deliberately gotten in his way and tell Sam to stop hovering.

'Dean,' Sam's voice was soft, concerned and scared. Everybody was duped into thinking was some innocent sweet scholar, but he was actually very strong and somehow yanked Dean up by his shoulder. Dean was startled.

'Hey, hey,' Sam said 'it's alright.'

'Okay,' he replied. He wasn't alright. His head throbbed unnaturally.

'You'll need stitches on that cut, idiot' Sam shook his head, like it was all Dean's fault there was a log in the way and they shared genes with Saturn and monsters existed and they were hunters 'you should've just told me.'

'Huh?' It seemed like such a conclusive word, there was no more need to have any other vocabulary.

'What else? That you weren't feeling too good.'

'I am feeling better than you,' Dean sniffed indignantly 'it's not my fault I don't have super freaky night vision eyes like yours. We'll get there and I'll slash that creature so hard it'll dissolve.'

'I'm an idiot,' Sam mumbled, obviously not listening to him, 'I should never have listened to you.'

'Don't blame yourself' Dean sighed, 'it's not your fault. There's no fault, just dumb trees.'

'We can't walk any slower,' he said apologetically.

Sammy was quite a sweet kid. Dean didn't know where he got it from.

'I'm sorry Sammy' Dean said quietly. He took a deep, deep, deep breath and felt his chest expand. That was better. They had to move and he would be in charge. He quickly wiped the blood from his forehead, and randomly wondered what type of detergent would get it off his warmest jacket.

It was a bit tricky to keep with the gigantic strides of his brother along with a stuffy chest, but he was determined to not fail himself and endanger his brother, so he did it. They finally came in view of the caves, rough grey stone with gaping black holes like evil sores. He shuddered.

They climbed the crumbling rocks till a vantage position and Sam set up the guns. He was a better shot than Sam, and since they probably only have two chances at the most, he'd have to do it. Only, he wanted to throw up.

Stop it, stop it, stop it, he told his head, stop pounding like that.

'Take a quick nap,' Sam told him, which meant he was looking like cream cheese, because they never did something absurd as nap when hunting monsters this dangerous.

'I can't,' he mumbled and Sam shook his head. It really wasn't because he was being stubborn, just that he wanted to be sick and his head was full of fudge and the world was ending.

'Oh God,' he heard Sam mutter 'it's already up. Grab your rifle.'

Dean obeyed. He looked through the lenses. It was a dinosaur with forty rows of shark teeth and the claws of a griffin. He'd never seen anything like it. Sam swore.

It swiped the rocks, the mountains shuddered and then there was nothing.

It was a bad nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

The rocks shook and the caves groaned, revengeful children against gun bearers.

Dean thought that sometimes things didn't quite make sense, like when bones had feelings. Bones were to make his legs walk into gas stations all over the states and run through the greasy claws of sadness that always wanted to grab him away. They weren't supposed to ache and hurt.

The pain made his arm a vague length that couldn't be measured. He felt it everywhere and somewhere, but didn't know where exactly nature had been twisted. Sam would probably be his willing doctor and end up diagnosing a sprain. He did that sometimes, in his calm firm voice.

Sammy cared. Sam sometimes squinted at him that said 'why Dean, why'.

Sam. The thought of his brother was a shot of adrenaline. He had to get up and rescue him.

There was sticky gum in his eyes and if eyes had taste-buds, this wouldn't be bubblegum flavored. After a moment he realised it was blood. Sam would say stitches and click his tongue, and Dean would think his blood was metallic tinged sour-sweet.

He grappled for his gun. This was his worst hunt in the history of the universe. He was failing Sam in all kinds of ways and all he ever wanted to do was get the kid back to his research kingdom scratch free. That was never going to happen, seeing as his brother was probably dead now. They were all going to die, but in a cave?

That was wrong. There should be some dignity even in the death of a hunter.

'Sam?' he croaked, 'Sammy!'

The worst silences are always the loudest.

The only motion seemed to come from inside the cave. There was something that kept swatting at the stone, making it rattle. He could imagine it slashing his brother with its teeth, ribbons of plaid shirt scattered. He'd have to go down.

The climb was uneventful but painful, his left arm yelping when he reached an awkward hold. His first steps on ground crunched over thin white twigs that looked suspiciously like bones. Further in, it was all so dark, it made him dizzy. Dean didn't like dark spaces, they were claustrophobic and crackling, as if the color thinned out the air.

He breathed in, out and ventured deeper. The swatting had quietened.

Dean remembered that the creature was a cousin of the lizard and that the tail could be alive, but it could be dead because there wasn't any evil grunting. Sam could've gotten his wish and killed it all by himself, unless he'd been killed too.

'Sam?' he whispered. Sniffed.

Something trembled, twitched. He held the gun tighter and felt the imprint of patterned mettle on his palms.

'Dean!' it was an exclamation once born within a child, still lasting. He could interpret it. Sam always seemed so young when he said his name, something of a plea, something of a warning. The way Sam said it somehow got through his heart.

He felt lukewarm cave air swift through him and a murderous tail's final swipe. Blood spluttered that could be read by cavemen as 'the sign of a battle'. A weapon fired, twice.

'Whiplash' he spat.

* * *

><p>'What happened?' Dean asks, once Sam sits next to him like it's a picnic. They could chew on the stick bones for starters.<p>

'I think it was drawn to your flu' Sam begins, 'because it went straight for you.'

'I don't have flu' he interrupts angrily, like saying it would take it away.

'Everyone in this forest can hear you sniffing' Sam shrugs, 'it knocked you down and you didn't get up. I waited. So I had to save myself all by myself.'

'Didn't mean it,' Dean mumbles, wishing he could blame fate instead of himself, but it always feels like his fault 'it hits fierce.' Dean picked up a rock and flicked it at the massive tail. It looked the way it was supposed to, like the sketch in the journal. 'It doesn't even have shark teeth or the claws of a griffin. Does it change or something?'

'What are you talking about? It looks exactly like the one we hunted back when I was sixteen. Wait, were you hallucinating?'

'I wasn't anything,' Dean snaps, feeling a sort of spicy panic 'continue, caveman.'

'I shot it a few times, but of course it wouldn't die, because it only dies by silver bullets,' Sam looks at him balefully, 'so when it had decided that you were mostly done for, it went back. I'm creeping up to it, when I remember I have my silver knife. Any kind of silver might work. It feels like the thing you would do, be resourceful, so I throw it at its heart and it hisses.''

'Then it turns around and you shoot it in the eye.'

'Yes, one in each, and it just falls, rolls up,' Sam grins, like he's talking about a good movie 'but then its tail gets violent.'

'You shouldn't have followed it Sammy. You might've been killed,' Dean says worriedly, like it's still going to happen.

'I'm alive' Sam clasps Dean's arm gratefully. Maybe they both would've died years ago –given up- if it weren't to live for each other. Dean's distracted for a moment. His arm shudders and sends flickering signals to his brain.

The good thing about an absorbing trouble is that it shuts off other symptoms. Now Sam's here, the monster's dead and his head will throb, throb again. The hallucinations were not a very bright sign. Dean knows it, doesn't want Sam to know it too.

'I wasn't afraid of the tail, more that it would make a rock cascade crush me,' Sam continues, 'but you had your silver knife. So I either had to grab my knife back or wait for you.'

'So I saved your life,' Dean smirks or a weak effort of it that makes it look suspect, 'if I hadn't been smashed against this wall and my knife fly across the room to you, then you'd be the late Sam Spelunker.'

Sam snorts. Dean sees the cave walls getting closer and closer, claws closing up around him.

'I mostly saved yours,' Sam nudges him. It's always been some kind of a game between them, a count of scores. Dean mostly wins. Sam can save the world, Dean will save Sam. The night is heavy now, and cold, his eyelids closing. He's caught, can't move.

'You okay?'

'Stop asking me that.'

The story seems too tight, suddenly.

'Let's get out of here,' Sam stands up too quickly and he's so far, far away, so tall, Dean doesn't understand him for a second.

'It's dark,' Dean says vaguely.

'I know' Sam sighs. He should've remembered Dean was sick, instead of wanting to tell him the tale right that moment. It was just that it felt sort of nice, Dean listening to him tell all the exciting bits for once. He still hadn't got to the part where Dean would say 'you did good Sammy'.

Praises are always worth collecting. Precious knick-knacks other kids hoarded, Sam and Dean remembered each others' words.

Sam yanks Dean up, a bit rougher than he intended, but he needs him out before he blanks out completely. Dean's hot and sticky behind his collar, the fever creeping up already. There's blood on Sam's fingers. Dean had seemed so aware that he didn't think he'd had a head injury.

'Why do you always insist you're fine?' Sam frowns, 'you didn't tell me your head's cut.'

'Double times,' Dean mumbles.

'You broke your arm?' Sam sounds exasperated, like Dean does it deliberately to annoy him.

'I don't think so. It doesn't matter.'

'Nothing does,' he rolls his eyes, 'only that you're a lot of muscle and I don't want to carry you.'

'And then you saved your brother. Again,' Dean monotones.

Outside, Sam mutters a lot. Dean would mind and feel sorry, but there's air and light and he can open his eyes. He sits for a moment, cross legged on the ground, with ants crawling up his arms and thinks how good it is not to be a bat.

Dean feels it before it blurs the skies. He holds a fist over his chest, his other hand on top.

'I saw it on the weather channel' Sam's there, guns slung all over him, 'figured a light summer rain wouldn't hurt.'

They've hunted in winter, falling ice slicing through their eyelashes and into their brains. They've been swamped in downpours and sloshed in sudden rivers. A light summer rain is actually wonderful.

It would be refreshing but now another imagined invisible storm, almost theatrical, threatens. A chest determined to be more dramatic than the clouds. Dean's coughing before his hair gets wet.

The guns click against each other. Sam rubs his brother's back.

* * *

><p>'Imagine if rain was salty,' Dean wonders, 'because if it was, my cuts would sting.'<p>

'It can't be. It would upset the equilibrium.'

Sam's always worried about equilibriums. Dean thinks about yellow boots and jumping in puddles so brashly, it soaks everyone when they've just lowered their umbrellas. The rain feels endless and rushed, jelly-like when it settles on his shoulders and then it sifts through his jacket, prickling into his skin.

'How are you?' Sam asks fervently, like the answer will change this time.

Dean's been saying okay, okay, stop asking, but it won't stop raining, and lies seem wet.

'Cold' he chews his lip. Random thoughts drop of leaves. It seems like there's so much rain, they could use a raft. He wants to visit the sea someday soon. If he lived two hundred years ago, he would've made a great pirate. There's gum in his eyes again. He wants to close them.

'Dean, you can't drift off, you have to stay awake,' Sam would've put his arm around his shoulder, but its quagmires and dripping branches, so they have to walk single file. It's a Winchester only war. As usual.

'I don't like it' Dean sighs, 'I don't like the rain.'

'I don't like it either,' Sam tugs on Dean's sleeve.

'Not that rain,' he insists, forgetting he shouldn't say this out loud 'the one inside my chest.'

'Don't say that,' Sam snaps, even though he doesn't want to. Dean rarely gets ill but when the fevers eventually erupt in his lungs, it isn't blankets and Gatorade. A hospital is the more logical conclusion.

'Don't be scared Sammy,' Dean's voice is somehow clear, all around the forest, holding up Sam's courage through the sludge, 'it'll be okay.'

'We're almost by the Impala. Hang on,' Sam replies gratefully, like Dean's told him some kind of secret spell. Dean has no idea why, but it almost always works. It's weird with Sam sometimes. He either trusts Dean with all his heart and or refuses to look at him, like he suddenly isn't a Winchester anymore.

They trudge. It rains.

'We need sun,' Sam kicks away another branch. Now he wishes Dean was ahead and clearing the path, 'careful, step this way, stupid falling trees.' Wait, there it is, their panther. It's waiting for them, a crouching predator. He'll never tell Dean, but sometimes the Impala seems almost real.

He's never going into that forest again.

'There's star wars behind my eyes,' Dean's almost incoherent now.

'How is it possible for you to get all kinds of sick in one day?' Sam mutters and yanks open the door, helps Dean inside. He tugs off Dean's boots, wrenches off the jacket. Dean does make some kind of argument to drive, which means he isn't that ill, or it's probably because he wants Sam to know he's mostly alright. He's always doing that.

It doesn't matter if there's cracks in his skull 'its' okay Sammy' makes it almost all better.

Sam switches on the car, glances at his brother and gulps. Dean's holding his knees, and the coughs swell, fall and sound like a half formed teenage band playing inside Dean's chest.

Sam catches a soft word, 'hurts.'

He feels it too.


	3. Chapter 3

The rain hadn't let up yet. It had turned into a soft drizzle, patterning onto the windscreen. If Sam hadn't spent the better part of what seemed like his life in it, he would think it was actually soothing. Dean was restless next to him, shifting wetly in his seat and coughing sporadically. Sam resorted to driving one handed, rubbing Dean's back with the heel of his hand.

'How far away are we?' Dean croaked out each word, which reminded Sam of sudden Latin exams, in eerily quiet moments, in the middle of night hunts. Oh, dear father.

'About a half an hour,' Sam answered. Since some part of Dean was probably made of asphalt, the only time he'd ever ask that was when he really wasn't feeling well. The fact that he was admitting it –in code, nonetheless- made Sam wonder if there was a hospital nearby. Water dripped down his hair and behind his collar. He shivered.

'The heat,' Dean mumbled 'it's good.'

Sam squinted at his brother for a second.

'You liar,' he retorted. There was no way the heat was helping clear Dean's lungs. It was making the air dry and stuffy, and the only reason it was on right now was because they needed to get warm.

'I'm going to die soon, mostly by a bullet, but at the moment with a chest infection or by not breathing,' Dean's voice strained, in an effort to be serious, 'but you're going survive. So it's worthless you getting sick.'

'Shut up,' Sam growled. The problem with Dean and his offhand comments about his death had always irked him. Dean didn't take his life seriously enough and it was evident from the time Sam could take care of himself. Sam could imagine Dean being so reckless without his little brother around, that he was probably disappointed when he was still alive.

Dean coughed. Sam thwacked Dean on the head and didn't feel sorry about it.

'If you don't care, I definitely do care about you dying,' Sam snapped, knowing it wasn't the right time to be having this conversation, but then again, it was never the right time with them 'so you can die after I'm dead!'

He had committed Winchester sacrilege. There were all sorts of topics that weren't supposed to be broached, but death was an absolute no-go. If they didn't speak about it, it meant that they hadn't reached depths which no other human would consider thinking about when it came to dying family members. The Winchesters were perfectly peachy, as long as they kept quiet.

So the comment was sharp enough for Dean to snap his head around, ignoring the lights swirling angrily behind his vision for a second, and stare at him. The rain had sunken Dean's cheeks a cold blue, and his eyes were rimmed red with fever. Sam pressed down on the accelerator.

'You are not dying,' Dean would've yelled, Sam was sure, but it came out in a soft whine, like he was pleading, and that only made it worse. The effort and emotion caught in his chest, and the next breath got lost somewhere between getting by and desperation. Sam could hardly keep his attention on the road when Dean's lungs sounded like they were bubbling blood. He should never have said a word. Sharp wheezes caught static in the sticky air of the car.

'Dean,' Sam whispered, 'calm down.'

'Sammy, you can't,' Dean drew the words through his torn soul, unlocked from a copper box in his heart, out of the corner of his bitten bottom lip, 'promise.'

'I promise Dean, I promise,' he replied without a second thought, full of sincerity and hope. He had always known it, but this was the first time he'd said it out loud. He would do anything for his brother. He would never let him down. Dean needs him to promise. Dean needs him.

Dean's chest hitched, like a toddler who has cried loudly and boldly and is now too exhausted to herald the thought of anything more.

Later, Sam will feel the ice at the edges of his promise, which he knows, deep down, is an untruth. Neither he nor his brother can control their deaths, no matter the promises they have always kept; told or not. Dean insists there are still ways, but then there are consequences, and Sam has never liked those.

* * *

><p>Dean is as asleep as a sick person can be, sniffling and shifting uncomfortably. Sam wants to leave him, let him sleep for hours and days, because he always thinks Dean needs more sleep. It's another thing he nags his brother about, even though Dean never listens. There's a reason Sam continues asking. Once, Dean was always telling him what to do when he was a teenager, 'Sam eat your breakfast, Sam lower your arm that way it's safer, Sam always keep quiet when dad's in a mood' but Sam never listened and told Dean to stop bossing him around like he was still a kid.<p>

One day, Dean kept quiet, and all it did was leave a dull hurt. It felt like Dean didn't care anymore. He has this feeling Dean thinks he cares a lot less about him, than he cares about Sam. It isn't true. He can say it to Dean a hundred times, in so many words, but there is always that reserve, that fear, a wariness where Dean doesn't absolutely trust Sam's love.

He feels he needs to earn it, but that aggravates him. Dean should inherently know that his little brother loves him a bit too much.

Sam had learnt that there were too many kinds of hurts. There were his broken bones and bullet wounds and then there were Dean's broken bones and bullet wounds. There was remorse and deep, twisting guilt, and loss and strangling worry, and it seemed like every kind had attached itself to him like sea urchins. When he thought there could be no more, he learnt of yet another one.

Sometimes, he hated his life so very terribly. On occasion, he had thought about jumping off a bridge or something more effective, but sadly, he'd also promised his comatose, coughing brother, not many minutes ago, that he'd live.

'Sam?' Dean coughs out.

Sam sighs. He doubts Dean can see properly. His eyes are half glued shut and it doesn't look healthy. He puts a hand over Dean's shoulder and they shuffle into the motel, bedraggled, wet and shoe-less, like they've crawled in from another century. And to think that yesterday they were referred to as, 'that's how the young men of our society should all look.'

The motel is run by a woman with a rifle slung on her side. The site is not uncommon and it hadn't bothered them, since a lady should always have a weapon or two to defend her property and her plaid shirt. What is uncommon, and disorientates them both, is that she tells Sam he can use another room's shower. This has not, in the millions of motels they have stayed in before, ever occurred.

Sam thinks about demon possession for a second and then decides he'd risk his life with a demon than stay cold for another second. He helps Dean off with his shirt, then his t-shirt, then a long sleeve t-shirt, which Dean had obviously worn because he'd known, the twat, that he wasn't feeling well, but instead decided to spend decades traipsing all over the forest. Then he switches the shower heat to bearable steaming and tells Dean he'll see him in a short while.

'Is your ear alright?' Dean asks, it sounds like it's coming through his nose, since his mouth has been switched for breathing purposes.

'You can hardly see, but you're asking me about my ear?' he avoids the question, because his ear feels like it's caught a cold itself, and he wants to ignore it. 'How do you even know?'

Dean rolls his eyes and huffs at the same time, which has been his perpetual expression to anything Sam is supposed to know the answer off. At least, he tries too, but ends up coughing.

'I'm going to go to the chemist too, so sit tight,' Sam runs his hand through his hair worriedly. Dean's cough is getting worse quicker than it should. It's not as wild as it was earlier, but it's now deep and wretched, making Dean's eyes water and his fist scrunch up.

'Leave the impala,' Dean uses his second of respite to be sarcastic, the jerk.

Sam waits until he can hear Dean in the shower, in case he does something like faint before it, because he still has that head injury, and realises his damp clothes have settled into his skin, years of having to wait to be next in turn.

'Don't' cough 'be' cough 'too' cough 'long' cough 'Sammy.'

* * *

><p>It was alright when he got back, laden with flu meds, something for his ear –of course it wasn't bad at all, but maybe for some other time- and an inhaler, which he hoped they didn't need, because Dean was supposed to have outgrown them ages ago. Dean was sitting on the floor -in sweatpants and Sam's t-shirt- leaning on the wall, because the bed that was two steps away was as near to him as the end of the world was.<p>

Sam sat next to him and checked the cut on the back of his head. It only needed four stitches and Dean was mostly asleep, so he didn't wince. Better yet, he didn't try his poker face, which meant that it really did hurt, but he was trying to be John Winchester.

Sam plied Dean with cough syrup and then he yanked him to the bed closest to the door, because God forbid he slept in the one nearer to him, since that was Sam's bed, and so would rather sleep on the carpeted floor, which was…carpet.

Carpet and coughs don't exactly go well together.

Sam's bed, which was a step away, suddenly seemed so very far away from Sam, so that they both sat on Dean's bed and promptly fell asleep. He wakes up when Dean's skin is singeing his arm. It doesn't take an algorithm to know that Dean's fever is blistering badly but a thermometer will make Sam feel better.

'Open your mouth Dean,' he orders.

'No,' says Deans, and opens it anyway.

Sam checks the thermometer and decides Dean's fever is infuriating, because it's not going down but keeps threatening to go up and he is shivering so much that his bones are going to poke out through his pale, almost see-through skin.

'You look so awful,' Sam comments unkindly.

In an effort to reply, Dean's voice is caught in his throat and he's gasping for air, clutching Sam's arm like its tethering him to earth. Sam tries to remember that he shouldn't say a single confrontational word when Dean's threatening to choke himself to death.

'Stop it dude,' he tries, as if it's psychological.

Dean isn't stopping, almost like it's deliberate. Sam thumps his back with more strength then he should and thinks Dean's whimpering because there's going to be bruises on his spine. Sometimes he forgets just how incredibly, naturally strong he is.

'Wait,' he says after a second, 'tell me you didn't bruise your ribs too.'

Dean looks sorrowfully at him, with eyes as large as a hopeful kitten's. It's ironic how he's apologising for his own pain.

'Your fault,' Sam wants to say something rude but you can't tell Dean anything when he looks at you like that. Mostly, he's getting that itching worry, because he's helpless.

Should he call an ambulance? Should he give Dean another Tylenol?

'Blanket,' Dean manages to say, letting go off Sam's arm and falling back.

Sam savours the (wheezy) silence for a wonderful few moments. Then he recalls Dean's request and blatantly refuses. Dean stares at him balefully with his cheekbones, because Sam knows Dean's expressions even with his eyes closed.

'We need to get your fever down, not roast you,' he says through his teeth. Reluctantly, he gets off his bed (or Dean's rather) and soaks the last towels in icy cold water and lays it on Dean's head and arms. Then he switches the AC onto frigid, and thinks that it's really not very good for his ear.

He supposes everybody gets those too high fevers that come crashing down at 5am and all they'll have to do is wait it out. It's only another all-nighter worrying about Dean's organs and he's mostly used to that.

Still. It doesn't matter how many times he's waited for Dean to be in the clear, it gets to him every time. It's all kinds of exhausting. He puts all the pillows under Dean's head and his back and it might help, if Dean didn't keep moving around.

And the fever won't go. He uses ice from the mini fridge, soaks the towels a more few times, decides that the last resort will be to find a bucket full of ice and dunk his brother in it. Also, it's logical if he sits with Dean, seeing as he doesn't have keep getting up to take his temperature. He might snag a quarter of pillow too.

He is just so tired.

'Go sleep Sammy,' Dean croaks out.

'I can't,' Sam mumbles, automatically reaching to touch Dean's forehead 'it's amazing you're not smoking yet.'

'Bad for my chest,' Dean shifts again, and his arms are so hot now, too hot, abnormally hot, that it makes Sam jump up, knock his knee on the dresser and reach for the phone. He can't fix this.

'Sam, no' Dean says angrily, which is really unfair, 'I'm fine.'

'You're sick,' he holds the phone, numbers punched in 'your fevers almost too high.'

'That doesn't mean I'm in danger. Half an hour more and you call,' and Dean, even though he sounds like he's speaking a foreign language, is still easier to listen to. 'Come sit back down.'

'My ear,' Sam says sleepily, because Dean's in charge again and he can let his guard down.

Sam knows Dean's looking at him crossly, but they can argue later. He won't fall asleep, Dean's coughing too loudly and shivering too much for anyone in the motel to get a half an hour of sleep.

-SPN-

He wakes up when he hears a thump. Dean's not next to him. It takes him a moment to notice that Dean's on the floor and the stitches on his head have all opened. There's blood dripping onto his nape.

It's the first time in the past 24 hours that Dean's breathing has quietened down to normal.

A bit too quiet, perhaps.


End file.
